They say, “Eyes are the mirror of the soul”. Then by that measure by 2050, it’s going to be onerous to be trying to decipher it. Because my guess is soul reading will definitely require some farsightedness and a global study suggests that by 2050 nearly half of the world population will be suffering from myopia.
Oh! Yes, Myopia’s numbers are ever increasing in recent times. Myopia or nearsightedness is the eye condition when things in the distance are no longer clearly visible to a person. It often starts in young ages between 6 to 14 and in India alone there are more than 10 million cases per year.
People who are myopic can clearly see the objects up close and can perform the tasks like reading, doing computer work clearly, but can find tasks like sports, driving (as that require reading signs) etc. blurred without treatment.
How it happens:
When your eyeball elongates (it is still being researched how eyeball grows long) or your cornea is curved then the light will fall in front of the retina, instead of falling on the retina. Which in turn gives you the blurry vision for far away objects.
Now you may have heard the term high myopia and pathological myopia. These are still myopia just varying in their severity:
High myopia is when your reading glasses prescription reads -6.00D and above and it opens you to risks of suffering from glaucoma or cataract and more severe eye conditions.
Pathological myopia also known as malignant or degenerative myopia is high myopia where some degenerative changes happen to the back of the eye. This is believed to be hereditary. It rapidly progresses and leads to loss of vision. It can also cause retinal detachment, new blood vessels can grow that may leak into your vitreous gel, glaucoma, thinning of your retina, basically havoc for your eyeball.
Worry not, for most people myopia can be treated with simple glasses, corrective lenses or at the most refractive surgery. The most common surgery done to correct this is Lasik, which doesn’t even require you to be hospitalized. Pathological myopia will require different treatment based on the degenerative damage that has been caused. Sadly, not all of them can be treated.
As you can imagine symptoms of the condition are:
- When things in the distance are blurry
- Straining to see things
- Headaches because of straining
When suffering any of these consult an ophthalmologist who will run regular vision test and a detailed eye examination and suggest the corrective measure. Myopia usually stops building up in adulthood but if you see any changes in your vision be sure to check with a doctor. Interestingly a study suggests that less outdoor time in children can be one of the causes for myopia. So you may want to ensure to add some outdoor time for your kids as a precaution.
Beyond that, relax it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. Besides there are chances this study could yet be proven wrong 2050 is not on sight for some time.